Randy
Let’s keep this simple and to just one circuit. Let’s install a 120 volt 15 amp circuit to this metal dock for a light and receptacle.
In the branch circuit going to that dock will be one black hot, one white grounded neutral, and one bare or green the equipment grounding conductor.
Should the black hot conductor be in contact with the metal dock the current will flow back to the service equipment on the bare green wire at which point it will then cross the main bonding jumper to the neutral at the service equipment and from there back to the transformer.
This current will take this path if there was never a ground rod driven anywhere on the premises.
What this current in this 120 volt circuit will not do is travel to earth in any way. This current will not go to the ground rod that is installed at the service at all. No not even one amp.
Now with your analogy of the rusted trailer hitch just where does this grounded negative wire connect to the ground rod? The trailer hitch is the same as the white wire in a 120 volt circuit or it is the return path back to the battery.
Here is where you are confusing yourself in the thinking that the trailer hitch has a ground wire like the 120 volt circuit which it doesn’t. In the trailer hitch the chassis of the vehicle is the second wire unless there is a negative wire installed instead of the chassis of the car. What the car does not have is a ground rod or even a ground wire.
If you want to drive ground rods at the dock then by all means drive as many as you want. There is no harm in all those rods down there but the second you cut the equipment grounding conductor you need to be prosecuted in court for attempted murder.
Your conception of earth ground is enough to make me wonder just why as a maintenance man they would allow you to even change a light bulb. You are dangerous and what makes you so dangerous is you self-selling idea of earth ground and you inability to listen when someone is trying their best to correct your mistake.
Cutting the equipment grounding conductor at the metal dock is what that I sent to the licensing board down there and I will promise that someone will be cruising those lakes looking for metal docks. When they find one where the equipment grounding conductor has been cut they will be coming after that person with a vengeance.
Since you asked the question of what role I think the ground rod plays in an electrical circuit... let me ask you.. what role does a grounding rod play in a circuit if it is bonded to a switch box panel, transformer, or whatever it may be attached to?
The ground rod plays absolutely no role in the circuit at all. The circuit will work just fine without a ground rod ever being installed.
The reason we install the rod is in case lightning strikes.
I do understand that if a hot wire contacts a metal dock the dock and thus the earth becomes energized. It is the ground rod that conveys this potential energy to the earth. This is where the circuit is no longer in the neutral wire but the dock and it's ground wire becomes the circuit in question. I also understand that the "safety ground" is the ideal way to return the electricity to the switch box panel.. which would then convey it to the earth ground or neutral if the neutral is bonded to the ground wire.
Here is where you seem to understand nothing and are as confused as a cat caught up in a dog kennel.
Current is not conveyed to the ground rod. Current is conveyed back to the transformer from which it came.
Here is where you refuse to listen and are making a critical life threating mistake that someone somehow must stop.
This is why I asked the question which you did not answer "should the neutral be bonded to the "safety ground/earth ground" at the dock so the electricity can return to it's source?
The only place that the neutral and the grounding electrode conductor, equipment grounding conductor, or any metal can come in contact with each other is at the service equipment even if this service equipment is 300 yards away. ONLY IN THE SERVICE EQUIPMENT
What I'm trying to figure out is how to safely get rid of that Tickle/ants in the pants when the ground wire from the box with a door on it which is hundreds of feet away is attached to the dock. I already know why it exists which is something you seem to be overlooking. This is the equipotential ground you started out talking about... but apparently this does not remove the ants.
Try going around that lake and repairing all the installations done by maintenance men and do away with those that persist in doing something different than what several thousand engineers have been doing for the past 100 plus years to make the electrical installations safe then maybe just maybe the ants in the pants will go away. Wonder why there is so much effort put into writing the NEC if all the information contained therein is so damn wrong?